The last year has been an incredibly strange one for us all and now that the UK is back to some form of normality, we thought we’d give you an update!
We reopened our office
As a cloud accounting firm, we can work from wherever we need or want to. We’ve always had a flexible approach to working but back in March 2020, like most businesses across the UK, we became fully home based and the office doors were firmly closed!
We don’t think we’re alone in experiencing a need for a dedicated office space – recent stats from the Office for National Statistics show that 85% of home working adults want to use a “hybrid” approach of both home and office working in the future.
So, with that in mind, we re-opened our office doors for employee use at the end of June! The team joined us in staggered groups for a fun-filled day of team building activities – following negative Covid-19 tests and guidelines of course. It was a great day and our first fully remote employee, Mira, got to meet us in person.
Going forward we will continue to support home and hybrid working, as we’re keen to accommodate for all. We’ve found that while some people like working from home, many of our team are keen to use the office space as remote working isn’t a long-term preference for everyone.
We’ll be back – with a NEW look
We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes developing a new look and feel for Blu Sky. We’re really excited to share our new look with you all!
We’re still the same Blu Sky team, but we’ve really put a lot of thought into our look and feel, along with revisiting our internal team core values and behaviours.
The Blu Sky Values are:
- Be a Pro
- Do Great Things
- Have Fun
As we’ve all had different experiences over the last year and a half, it’ll be our values that we focus on to keep us aligned with our goals!
What’s next? We’re growing the team
We’ve experienced a period of growth and have expanded some of our service offerings to further support our existing clients! To support with the additional work, we need a few new team members.
We’re currently on the lookout for:
A Cloud Accounting Team Leader
This is an exciting role that sits at the heart of Blu Sky’s strategic vision for many years to come. The right individual will, over time, reshape this key role as it currently stands, using their talents and experience to help drive further systemisation of efficiency both to output of the team, and the exception and reporting management thereof. Collaboration is key, and you’ll have plenty of help to achieve this.
You will report directly to our COO, a director and shareholder of the company. Your responsibilities are to drive the quality, delivery and expertise of your team of eight Cloud Accountants, using Dext:Prepare, Dext:Precison and Xero. Team growth is a key factor, and you’ll have significant influence in the shape and makeup of the team.
The key responsibilities and duties of the CATL role are:
- Overall accountability for planning and delivering to plan for reconciliation and management reporting products including, but not constrained to, standard management accounts, bespoke management accounts, and our Insights product. Potentially using several different apps, for example fathom or fluidly.
- Managing and coaching cloud accounting team (CAT) members (currently a headcount of 8), including management of the quarterly review process.
- Implementing and controlling quality standards in the deliverables area (working with a Client Relationship Director accountable for these standards).
- Participating in product development to assist with delivery of the Blu Sky product road map, anticipating what our clients need and want.
- Reviewing deliverables within the team to ensure a consistent high quality of work.
- Longer term, potentially managing a small portfolio of clients, closely working with these clients to build a longstanding relationship.
A Client Relationship Director
As a Client Relationship Director, reporting directly to our CFO and Cofounder, it will be your responsibility to delight clients by becoming their trusted adviser, focused on helping to grow their business. Using your highly developed technical and relationship management skills you’ll be able to provide strategic thinking and commercial support to both client businesses and Blu Sky, allowing the co-founders to focus on what they do best.
The role of client relationship director will scale with the client’s business as it grows and indeed Blu Sky as we grow. After initially helping to scope and evolve the key financial processes, the CRD should ensure that as the client business scales, strategic insight is given, and effective financial processes evolve.
The key responsibilities and duties of the CRD role are:
- Managing a portfolio of clients, closely working with these clients to build and expand the relationship. This will include working on client growth plans to grow your current portfolio of clients both with renewals and increased services via helping explore client company objectives, fund raising opportunities, finance processes.
- Overall accountability for your portfolio of client’s compliance services, managed by an internal delivery manager, including reviewing all deliverables for your portfolio of clients to ensure a high quality of work is delivered.
- Credit control of your portfolio of clients, including managing payment of any overdue invoices.
- Coaching and mentoring staff to embed technical and behavioural skills in line with Blu Sky values and behaviours.
- Participate in Blu Sky product development
- Networking and managing relationships with key business contacts to improve the quality and quantity referrals.
- Sales to new clients to help increase the client bank within Blu Sky.
Interested in joining our team? Drop us a message!
